Final thriller: Visions (The full movie)

This is our fourth and final thriller piece. Visions (zoned out productions)

The preliminary Task (The Courier)

The Courier

The courier is our third minor film we made acting as the preliminary task. I am now going to critically assess my preliminary exercise.
We thought to create a small story to do with the transport of goods hence the name "The Courier" (one that delivers). We wanted there to be three main characters and to have only the three characters in the film.

Match on Action
We used the Match on Action many times in different scenes through the short film as it worked effectively and made the film better and made them stand out from our previous ones. Match on Action is basically cutting the film then playing it in a different position but at the same time making the film carry on looking more fluent and keeping it flowing.
Examples of match on Action in our preliminary task:



















Shot, reverse shot
Shot and reverse shot is mainly used in conversations. This is when one person is facing another when they are listening to the other person and the camera moves position for the other person to do the same. we used this one or two times in this task as there were a few scenes where conversations takes place.

Examples of Reverse shot in the preliminary task:

Eye line match
We did not use the eye line there fore we have no examples of it in our film. We thought that this technique did not match or go with our thriller, we thought it was not appropriate.

180 degree
this is another effective technique we used in our short film. This involves the camera being in a position where the characters are on the same side
s through out the film but not necessarily in the same room.

We used many different types of film making techniques to make this one stand out from the other two films we made. They include; the different types of camera shots, mise-en-scene, we also used the attachable mic for a better sound and we used

Audience feedback (final film)

Audience feedback  (final film)

This is a video of the feedback kindly given to us by our classmates. The gave us their personal opinion of our film as well as going in detail as to what they liked and didn't like about our final thriller piece.

Over all they gave positive feedback, they said the liked the film and they said there was good sounding for example diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.
(Diegetic sounds are the sounds in the film in which the characters of the film can hear. e.g: knocking on doors in the film, characters dropping things that make loud noises. Non-Diegetic sounds are the sounds in which the characters cannot hear for example; suspenseful music and voice overs & narrations.)

Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the finished product?

Preliminary task and thriller comparison:

The preliminary task was the third film we made in media studies that lacked a lot of components of a common thriller. It differed from our final film quite a bit. We used many different types of camera angles and techniques as well as sound techniques (diegetic, non-diegetic etc.) Our final thriller film had the same techniques but we used them in different but in better scenes. For example, match on action in  the park scenes in our final thriller, we took many different shots from different angles and we tried to put them together and make the film look smooth and look as if they fit in perfectly, correctly. Match on action in the preliminary task film was used in the scene when a character was walking into the room then the camera is at a different angle but we tried our best to make the film look smooth. It was much smoother on our final thriller piece.

The courier (match on action scenes)








What skills we gained and what did we learn?

We gained many skills when making our media films as well as gaining skills in between the making of the 4 films. We learned more about sound, sound effects and transitions to make the film look as professional  as possible and link the films back to real thrillers. We used different camera angles to make the films look better. we also learned about the best positions for the camera when when filming and how to use the tripods stands successfully and to our advantage.

Scenes from visions (final thriller)

Match on action

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product

We used various different types of technology such as digital cameras & camcorders, our mobile phones, Wikipedia, google, Youtube, slideshare, dafont & Free SFX computers and iMacs.

We used these different types of technology to help us with our final thriller peice, our blogs and for aid and information.

We used google for searching various different things and wikipedia for information as well as facts and figures. We used slide share for a quick and easy presentation for various blogs, cameras and camcorders for recording our thriller pieces and our mobile phones for quick pictures as they are easy to use, connect to bluetooth and to upload pictures. The websites we used for our thriller peices were Dafont for good text and font styles in order to create good titles and credits, we also used FreeSFX for sound effects to add sounds that reflect on the film.

 Youtube was used, as it is one of the most popular and easy video uploading websites in the world we used it to our advantage. We used youtube to upload our video and successfully put it straight one of our blog posts. Wikipedia is a free online encylclopedia so we used the site for various bits of information, for example informaion and facts for our Sir Alfred Hitchcock presentation. For our video editing, we used final cut express, due to the fact that we were using iMacs every now and again and final cut express is a video editing software only for the iMacs, we used it to edit our thrillers.

We have gained many different types of skills from using these types of technologies. One of the main skills that we learned was learning how to use the digital cameras and camcorders effectively. We got better at steadying the camera when filming as well as using the accessaries and equipment that are compatable with the camera such as the tripod and the mini microphone. We also learned how to use final cut express and edit films almost like a proffessional learning the key effects and fades as well as sound editing.



Question 5

How did you attract/ address your audience your audience?

How does our thriller hold the audiences attention?

The thriller opening we made holds the audiences attention by making it look like not enough informationis given. We want the audience really want to know whats goin to happen in the whole film as well as get interested in thriller genres in general. Another attention grabbing technique used were parks and other locale plasses, the audience are likely to recognise these areas.


Why would they want to want to watch your film

People would want to watch our film because it holds the aspects of a normal, proffesional thriller such as red herrings, cliffhangers and suspensfull music. Also there are young adults casted as the characters baring in mind our film's audience is targeted at 13-17 year olds.


Why would they carry on wathcing after our initial 2 minute opening?

They would carry on watching because the whole opening is a complete cliff hanger, we wan the audience to be on the edge of their seats. The end of the opening of our thriller shows two men and one of them is someone not seen as a threat or a "bad-guy" throught the film but at the end is bad.

Question 4

Audience

This is the answer to evaluation question 4 on the Glogster website

Question 3

This is the answer to question 3 in a Powerpoint presentation shared in Slideshare

Question 2

Question2


This is evaluation question 2. I used the popplet presentation website

Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

What are the conventions of the thriller genre?

The conventions of a thriller include: low key lighting, fast and slow paced editing, music and sounds that increase tension, camera angle changes and quick cuts

Low key lighting creates a dark mood, a dark scene for a thriller in order to attract the audiences' attention.

Fast and slow paced editing reflects on the suspense of the audience. The faster the editing the more tension is built up, when editing seems slowest it means there is no danger yet. 

Quick cuts show difference between camera angles. this is also similar to fast and slow paced editing. The editors and film makers do this deliberately 

What conventions of the thriller genre did I use in your thriller coursework

In our final film, we used many different types of thriller conventions. The main conventions we used were, fast and slow paced editing, music of tension. These are common techniques used in many different thriller films. for example The Da Vinci code.
We tried our best to get the most important/main techniques used in thriller films in order to make the final film look more like a thriller as possible.

What films are similar to my thriller

Interrogation scene from our final thriller. 

there were a few thriller films of the films that we based our thriller on but the main film was the Final Destination series. This is because the main character had visions throughout the film, and was looking for answers and questioning people.

Audience Research + Focus group (for rough cut)

Audience Research + Focus group

For our rough cut, we asked our class mates for feedback. The responded honest gestures and constructive criticism in order to improve our final film. 

We agree with our classmates as there comments were true. There are a few things that need to be sorted out in our film.

The main problems of the film:

• The film length
• The main plot
• Scenes when characters were walking
• The weather 
• Speech

Film length

For our final piece, we needed our film to be under 3 minutes. Our rough cut was around 4-5 minutes so we needed to make it shorter. We are going to reduce the size of the film by editing the shots by cutting scenes as well as getting rid of unnecessary clips.
They said the film was way too long.

The main plot

Our class mates thought it was very difficult for them to actually get the gist of what is going on. We will re do some scenes and them into film including the psychiatrist scene, one of the main scenes to the film, as it explains a lot of the plot.

They said that they found finding the plot of the film too difficult.

Characters' speech + sound

we need the speech of the characters to be clear and understandable for the audience in order for them to find out what is happening in the film. We need to make sure that the sound is just right as this will help our audience hear the voices of the characters. 

They said that the characters were not speaking loud enough

Weather

As we were filming in february, the weather wasn't too good. The wind interrupted many scenes in the park. We are going to redo a lot of the scenes where and when it is not raining and there is not too much wind.
They said the wind was effecting the sound.

Studio ident analysis

Studio ident analysis

As part of my film project i am going to make an ident. An ident is a film studios way of telling people who they are. Below is a video that shows a number of different studio idents.

These include:

• 20th Century Fox
• Walt Disney pictures
• MGM
• Paramount
• Universal studios
• Warner Brothers

There are many more popular studio logos and idents such as, Dreamworks, Columbian pictures, Dolby, Miramax, Lionsgate, Regency, Touchstone pictrues etc...

Choosing our font

Choosing fonts

In order to make my film look professional we wanted to choose a font that was more interesting and did not look like it came off of a word document or power point.

To find an interesting font i went on a website call "Da Font". 

Da font had a wide range of fonts and it wasn't easy finding good fonts for our fourth thriller. We wanted good titles so we thought of good fonts that looked like it would've been in a thriller film. 

The three fonts we ended up using for our thriller were:

• Zebra
• Last day of Earth 
• Neuropol

Last day of Earth (final cut fonts)

This was our film making logo/title

Neuropol (from Da font)

We used the Neuropol font for the credits that went through the beginning of film at the bottom right

Zebra (from Da font)

We used this font at the end of the film, it was the main title for our thriller.

Visions (Rough cut)

This is the rough cut of our fourth thriller piece. The unfinished copy of our film.

Finding music

Finding music

Finding music for our thriller was essentially hard but we managed to find non copyrighted music channel from youtube which meant we were able to use in our film. It was quite difficult to find  the right music for the right scenes of the film as our film was slow passed and varied from scene to scene. once we found the appropriate music for the scene(s), we saved it to our desktop and put it into the film and rendered it. Most of the music we added into the film was suspense music to build suspense and create shock for our audience. The rest were some sounds that you would likely hear on thriller films and/or trailer. Our main music and sound effects for our thriller were from Free SFX and youtube.

We ended up using the "danger Zone" sound effect from Free SFX.

We also used non-copyrighted sounds from youtube such as David Lynch "the air is on fire"

Speed of editing

Speed of editing

In every film, scenes last for a certain amount of time alot of scenes last for seconds and others a few minutes. This is the speed of editing, it is to do with the time taken to film a scene. The speed of editing can also be used to create mood in which audiences are supposed to feel as well as the characters of the film. The director can choose wether he wants his audience to feel suspense by cutting quickly and record faster. He can also slow down the editing when the director wishes the audience should focus or pay attention to something especially important scenes.

There has once been a film made and produced in Russia called "The Russian Arc" that had no cuts and not much editing done to the film.
However there have been a lot of films with a lot of different camera angles, scenes and cuts. They are mainly in action films for example one of the Bourne films.

Example of  a fast paced film with many cuts.

Visions

This is our fourth and final thriller piece. Visions (zoned out productions)

Continuity editing

Continuity editing

Continuity editing is a unique style of film editing and/video editing. The purpose of this process is to get rid of jump cuts of a film and allow the film to flow without the audience being confused as to what has just happened. The word "continue" means to keep things going, instead of finishing it goes on more further. "editing" is to do with altering something shortening or making a film better.

There are many different types of continuity editing techniques, these include; match on action, shot/reverse shot, 180 degree angles etc


Match on action:
This is when two or more different scenes are put together when the cameras are in different places. The film still flows fluently as if they hadn't

Shooting schedule

Shooting Schedule

Day	Scene	Location	Equipment	Costumes	Props	Cast +Crew
1 2 3 4 5	Lance Filmore walking up the stairs to the doctors.  Psychiatrist Scene. Park scene. Lance Filmore having a vision when jogger passes by. Waking up scene Walking into the park scene Interrogation/ Confrontation	Stairs next to the study room (Robert Clack Lower School) Study room (Robert Clack Lower School). Central Park (Dagenham) 23 Gerald road (Dagenham, Essex) Central Park (Dagenham) Classroom (Robert Clack Lower)	Camera and Tripod. Camera, Tripod. Camera and Tripod Camera and Tripod Camera and Tripod Camera and Tripod	Lance Filmore- Blue Jacket, Blue jeans, Casual trainers, and Woolly hat. Lance Filmore- Blue Jacket, Blue jeans, Casual trainers, and Woolly hat. Dr.Khan- Red tie, maroon shirt, blue trousers, black cardigan. Glasses. Assistant- Black leather jacket, Grey skirt, Black tights and a blouse.   Lance Filmore- Blue Jacket, Blue jeans, Casual trainers, and Woolly hat. Jogger- Red Fila Jacket, Blue adidas tracksuit bottoms and adidas trainers Lance Filmore- Purple pyjamas and Navy slippers.  Interrogator - White Shirt, Black tie, Black trousers and Black shoes. Lance Filmore- Blue Jacket, Blue jeans, Casual trainers, and Woolly hat. Black shoes, Cream shirt. Black tie, Black trousers	Ear phones and a watch Ear phones and a watch Notepad and a pen. Earphones and a watch. Bed, Phone, Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Bowl, Cereal, Milk, Spoon.   Earphones and a watch. N/A	Jordan Walters Parveer Mahal Hassan Kawshar Parveer Mahal Jordan Walters Sophie Hawkins Parveer Mahal Hassan Kawshar Jordan Walters Jordan Walters Parveer Mahal Hassan Kawshar Parveer Mahal Hassan Kawshar Jordan Walters Parveer Mahal Hassan Kawshar Jordan Walters

Shot list

Shot List
Scene	Shot Number	Description
1 2 3 4 5 6   7   8 9 10 11 12 13	4-5 4-6 3 2 2 4   1 3 1   2 1 1 1-2	The main character (Lance Filmore gets up out of bed, goes down stairs and has breakfast) The main character gets dressed and goes out side for a walk in the park. Lance walks to the park bench and sits down. Whilst sitting down he sees a jogger who jogs in front of the bench, stops and catches his breath, then carries on jogging. After the jogger leaves, the Lance has a bad headache and holds his head and sees his first vision. In his vision, Lance is being chased by a mysterious man and cannot make out his face. The vision ends and Lance is holding his head. He then takes a visit his local psychiatrist. He approaches the clinic and stares at the sign. He gets escorted by the assistant and gets asked to have a seat. The psychiatrist and the main character have a conversation about the recent visions Lance has had. The psychiatrist finds this interesting; he adjusts his glasses and leaves his seat to search for more paper. Lance notices that the doctor had touched his glasses, which triggered his second vision. In this scene the main character sees someone talking to him and asking for some sort of device, in a sort of interrogation. He makes out the face of the people in the room, one of them looked similar to his psychiatrist and the other similar to the jogger he saw earlier that day in the park. He awakes from his vision with another headache and realises his doctor had left the room. In the last scene he awakes from his sleep in his home, in his bed. He realised it was all a dream. He heard a noise from outside his room, suddenly his door opened slowly and a man in black came in.